


The Knights Series

by Laura_McEwan



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-04
Updated: 2003-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:43:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_McEwan/pseuds/Laura_McEwan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of four stories, with ambiguous POV. A challenge to myself, an experiment of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Twilight to Knight

It's early evening, and the sun outside the windows of the Council chamber is setting in gorgeous shades of oranges and reds. The ornate walls softly reflect their glow, and I take a deep breath, and hold myself still, as is expected of me. But my thoughts...they wander.

You adopt the same stance; patient, calm. Traditional Jedi robes softly drape your shoulders; hiding hands clasped in reverence; covering the graceful, strong body I've grown to love, and I haven't ever even touched you. For all your lean lines and angles, I know I will find your hidden, softer spots waiting for me. Find them, I will. I will tease them out, lick them, taste them, mark them as mine and find yet more.

You don't suspect my secrets, my sighs. You don't even guess that I have such a lustful, needy thought about anyone, much less you.

Do you?

The friendly affection between us is obvious enough. We love each other. It's part of the simple bond we share as companions; teacher, student. You don't realize that what is killing me so slowly and softly inside is that I'm in love with you. Twelve years of existing daily with you has become a deep need to exist within you.

While my head is bowed, I glance at you through lowered lashes, as I've done so many times. I know just how you hold your mouth when you're buckling your boots; I know the sound of your bare feet padding from the 'fresher to your room, the slight rustle of the towel around your hips. I can smell the water evaporating from your shoulders, the scent of your freshly washed hair. We have been forced to share intimate space so often in our time together that there is no need for false modesty between us.

I want to know if the texture of your skin on my tongue is the same as it looks to my eyes.

Would you be shocked, surprised, if I told you that I've purposely finished my meditations early so that I can bask in watching your meditative self, in such golden peaceful serenity, at one with the Force? You have no idea how simply beautiful you are. Gentle, graceful, calm, confident. I want to kneel before you, rest my hands on your waist, claim you, hold you, and make you mine. My complete, shameless and abandoned love for you is what defines me the most. Your presence in my life is pure, and right, and true, and without you, I will surely die.

In my dreams, waking and sleeping, I can feel your body move beneath my hands as I pull you close, delighting in the warmth and scent and very being of you, urging you to join with me. I want to see your face when - if - that happens. I want to see you love me with your eyes while I love you with my body. I will lead you to the edge of ecstasy, knowing that with every deep stroke, I am swept along with you. With every gasp and murmur, we entwine our minds and selves until we become one, climbing to the crest, until the wave of passion crashes over us and we find ourselves exhausted in each others' arms, caressing and loving with fingertips and lips, soft words and gentle kisses.

I take another deep, silent breath, trying to settle myself again.

The sun is dipping ever lower, clouds radiating with golden red hues that pale in comparison to the vision of you bathed in them. Your skin glows with a sweet fire, as if set aflame by your spirit, your essence, your soul. It seems the very reflection of my feelings for you, hot and deep, and I want to step into your space, wrap our bodies in its heat, hold you to my heart.

My longing has burned, smoldered, and I am surprised you haven't noticed. You usually notice everything I do and say. I can't believe that you haven't heard me in my room, stroking myself to completion, reaching a release that is only bittersweet because while it's your name on my lips and your face behind my closed eyes, you are only a wall away, innocently sleeping or reading or meditating. You're never with me and I so want you there. I NEED you there.

Why haven't you noticed? _How_ haven't you noticed?

Have you ever loved someone the way I do you? If you allowed me to search hard enough, who would I see reflected in your eyes? Perhaps I would find that secret lover who touched you somehow; helped shape the person you've become, so much that he or she is a permanent part of your being, one who could point to some aspect of you and lay claim to its creation.

Force, to be that reflection.

If you were to search within my eyes, it would be you mirrored there - the brightly shining truth in this matter of my love.

What part of me would you wish to claim? So much of who I am came from the Living Force of you.

I've been covertly admiring your calm reverence and patience during this knighting ceremony, the culmination of a Master/Padawan relationship. Together, the goal of a Knighthood is reached, as the pair has shared the pains and the rewards of peacekeeping.

This particular ceremony deserves more attention than that which I've so weakly given it.

I'll admit, my distractions have been sweet.

Now, it's nearly done. A cut of the braid...and a new knight is presented. Feelings of pride and joy fill the chamber, and the invisible barriers of Code and propriety are between us no more.

Formalities now complete, we share holding a red-gold padawan braid in our hands, beads woven within it marking the passage of our time together. We share a long look, and gently, I search your eyes, hoping to discern your feelings as our training bond has been severed along with the braid. Are you pleased? Proud?

Will you allow a new bond to grow between us?

I search for that elusive reflection, and I promise myself that tonight, I will tell you. Tonight, I'll lay myself bare before you, confessing everything I've dreamed and longed for over the last few years.

I want to find those hidden soft spots within the lean lines and angles that define the physical you. I want to discover the soft smell of your hair, the gentle silk of your lips, taste the sweetness of your mouth. I want our inner selves to become one soul, brilliant in its passion, glowing in its purity.

Dare I hope that you might share my desires? Or will you compassionately let me down, or be shocked that I could even suggest...?

I find myself swallowing hard, not wanting to believe that you could say no.

Gently, I search your eyes, sure that my own betray me.

The waning sun rests its final rays across your face, highlighting those eyes with a last fiery flare, its dying moment revealing to me the very reflection I yearn for.

Me. Only me.

And you smile.

_~end_


	2. Twilight to Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried really hard to match the ambiguity and feel of the first. I hope that I have succeeded.

This somber, gloomy space is much smaller than our Council chamber. Here, it is dark and dank, with woven tapestries on the walls depicting bloody war scenes and martyrs dying for their cause, yet your innate grace and personal style imbues this sorrowful room with a comforting sense of security and confidence like a beacon through a dense and gray fog. Those gathered here embrace your light with a desperation born out of death and sorrow, and the greater part of my heart that is reserved only for you warms with a lover's pride. You are my light.

Skillfully, as always, you negotiate the treaty that has long been fought over and for, the unrivaled losses of land and life acknowledged and a sorrowful tribute paid. In a few short days, formerly warring factions have won a hopeful peace through your patient and calm ministrations.

That same simple patience helped win my peace of mind, my peace of heart. Yet, with this success comes an inevitable and painful sadness, for you, for me.

Now, if not perfectly friends, at least cordial acquaintances, the two haggard leaders stand together and each of them reach for your hand, to grasp in thankfulness and admiration, glad in their newfound understanding. I linger proudly nearby, outwardly smiling and inwardly calming myself, promising that I will heap my personal praises on you in private, when I can bury the seeds of my despair by burying myself in you.

I am overcome with an impassioned need to worship you. Alone, where I can touch you in those tender and hidden places where you allow only me, to mark them again and again as mine and only mine. I want to worship you with my hands, my lips, my tongue, my body. Time is a rare currency, and we must spend it wisely; it is a precious and brief gift.

Force, for just a little more time.

You glance in my direction, holding my gaze for a long moment. The loving warmth mixed with pure need is unmistakable, and my heart races because you find me worthy of your attention even at this frenzied and jumbled instance. You are worthy of all their gratitude. You are worthy of all their joy. You are worthy of all my love, and I give it freely only to you, without question, without regret.

For so many years, I hid my adoration of you. Within the perfect secrecy of silence, in voiceless whispers only I could hear, I longed for you. Yet I waited, as was expected of me, sinking my dreams deep into the ocean of my life until they could be safely raised, waiting for a knighting ceremony that would free us both to sink deeply into each other, heart to heart, body to body, soul to soul.

My hands clench together within their hiding place of voluminous, simple brown sleeves. I need to touch you. I must touch you.

I know you need to touch me.

Our freedom is not without cost. The Council, made aware of our passion, kindly granted us this mission together, but holds no promises for the future. This assignment carries a more important meaning than a mere peace treaty; it is our final mission as a team.

Separation is inevitable, but I do not want to dwell on it now. I try to sink that desperation into my personal ocean, but it fights my desire to wish it away. I do not want to lose our new closeness, this melding of hearts and bodies that makes us a greater whole than our individual selves. Already I am stretched and frail, even though you're standing mere meters from me.

I've never felt like this. It frightens me, and I should feel no fear.

Are you frightened?

I clench my jaw, struggling to compose myself. I need to taste you, savor the texture of your skin, sink your scent into my memory. I want to feel your body prove your love to me again and again until I can hold that love in my hands, tangible and real, to turn to when you cannot be with me.

My wandering attention is sought by more representatives of the recovering planet, thanking me for my part in the treaty that we have negotiated. Truly, I merely offered suggestions and alternate points of view, for you are the one that steadily coaxed their tentative kinship into existence, like a malformed piece of silver hammered and bent until a perfect bowl takes shape, a precious vessel to hold all the promises of a better future for themselves.

You are my precious vessel, shaped from our separate but twining lives, within which I entrust my love, my self, my body, all that I am. Without you, I would be less than nothing, a void, as empty and aimless as I was until you pierced the self-pitying veil of my life so many years ago.

I fear facing the emptiness that threatens with our impending separation.

Do you fear the emptiness?

I inhale deeply, my shaky composure threatening to fail. The stagnant air in this dingy room is unsettling, and I need your presence close to me. I need to press you to, and within, my heart.

Oh, how I love you. My light, my life and breath. Do you find in me your vessel, the keeper of your soul, of your heart? Am I truly worthy of them?

I step back, half-hidden behind one of the ghastly tapestries, and watch with profound admiration your progress among these emissaries of a nearly lost tribe of people. They perceive a savior in you, a prophet and promise of the future, and yet they know so little of you, the truth of who you are, the distinction of your personality, the rarity of your spirit. They will never know you like I do. I alone am privileged in that respect, and I am humbled by it.

No one will ever know me the way you do. I am yours alone. I waited for you for so long.

I blink rapidly, tears creeping into the corners of my vision. I need to see your eyes, to lose myself in them, to bask in your love shining from them.

Finally freed from the accolades, you seek me out behind my shield of dusty fabric, your beloved face masked with concern at my reticence. I reach for your hand, desperate for your soothing touch. I take a deep breath and find calm again, my childish fears fading into the background behind the radiant truth of you standing before me.

Your lips brush mine, a gentle reassurance of your love for me, and your smile carries with it the ultimate promise of your body. That is what I need, a physical release, a spiritual claiming, to melt into you. I need you. I want you to need me.

A brief look of weariness flickers across your face, and I can see that you wish to leave this close, dark room, to escape the bustle and noise. I pull your unresisting hand to my chest, placing my other hand on your waist, guiding you through the oppressive weight of the crowd, murmuring our goodnights and well-wishes to those remaining to celebrate the brotherhood that you showed them they already possessed but could not see for the blood.

Pushing our way out the heavy wooden doors, we gratefully step into the cool breeze of a clear spring evening, drawing in deep, cleansing lungfuls of crisp, pure air. We wander down the road through unfamiliar lands, seeking only privacy, space, and the familiarity of each other, leaving behind the dust and grime of verbal battles, ruined buildings and broken families.

We lean against the gnarled trunk of a tall and massive tree, looking past the reaching branches dripping with soft green moss to the stark, harsh blackness of the galaxy beyond, pinpoints of light shining as a candle through fabric, marking those distant planets yet to visit, to bring peace to, to protect.

Which one awaits your gentle hand and word? Where am I to go, besides apart from you? Apart, after all these years. For worlds that are so far away that they are but pale, flickering sparks, they are maddeningly close as our mission here rapidly comes to an end.

You turn to me, the tears on your cheeks mirroring mine, and I gather you close, the understated calm you have presented for the past few days falling apart as I clasp you in my arms, your body shaking with suppressed sobs as the strain of your efforts, combined with the truth of my melancholy, finally break you down. I am honored by your simple trust in me, to care for and keep you while your composure is lost, but lost only for a moment, for as much as you are a man, you are Jedi. We are Jedi.

And yet, we are but men.

We sit, leaning against each other for support, our hands clasped as we further contemplate the nighttime sky, white whisps of clouds occasionally obscuring the fainter stars, the sharp, brilliant crescent of the moon rising over the fields and hills of this embattled settlement.

We need to seek out our hidden, soft and tender spots before our time is denied.

Hungrily, we grasp at each other, tasting and touching, stroking and arousing, banishing the lurking specter of farewell by living in the moment, for it is in this moment of joining that we are one soul, one being, all that is true and right. We each find solace in the warm, living body of the other, loving and being loved, whispering promises and affirmations, until we collapse beneath the blanket of never-ending night that is our ever-changing home.

We will have to be a changeless, enduring home to each other.

The sun obstinately rises, the dawn muted and cold, pale pink rays sadly caressing your face, and we are called away. Duty first, hearts second.

You know I love you. Keep safe. Come home to my heart, love. I need to see my reflection in your eyes once more.

_~end_


	3. Knights of Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whomever you feel is speaking, Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan, is speaking.

It's been three months since we've touched. A few shared words with the occasional brief glimpse on a comm unit and love letters sent in packet burst is all the contact we've been able to manage. While those moments and words are precious and treasured beyond measure, they are nowhere near enough. I need to touch you. My fingers ache to remember the texture of your skin.

I need to see my reflection in your eyes.

In my dreams you are with me, silky and hard and hot in my palm, but then I wake and the false reality fades into the mist of morning like the stars at sunrise, and the solidity in my hand is only myself.

Every morning my heart breaks a tiny bit more, for once again I awaken to an empty pillow beside me and a hot throbbing against my belly. Bitter tears fall as I stroke myself, wishing for the intimate feel of you twisting under my hands, the soft heat of you writhing under my body, the sweetness of your lips pressing mine.

Wishing to hear the sultry desire in your voice, breathing my name, that hot whisper that sends me over the edge, even when I am alone and lonely in the cold, brittle light of dawn.

Without you, I am not whole. You complete that hopeful part of me that reaches for a future full of promise and passion, but you are not with me, and I am not whole.

And now I fear for your fragility as my transport races past streaking stars, never moving fast enough, to reach your side. My heart sank to the very pit of my stomach when the awful truth reached me via Council transmission. Your mission was thwarted by unexpected enemies and you were caught in the crossfire. Your injuries...I was told to go to you immediately, and I fear the worst.

The crew on board this ship have been solicitous, offering me tea and bits of food, but I am afraid I have not been the best company. The captain has been kind, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder, reassuring me that the ship is at best speed. I am grateful, but time is slipping past faster than we can fight against its current, holding me back from reaching your side.

Force, please, a little more time. _Please..._

With just under an hour before we arrive I stare out the tiny cabin window, looking at nothing but seeing everything.

The color of your eyes, how they darken in passion when we make love. Your gentle smile that speaks of your yearning when we are together. Your hands wrapped around your lightsaber handle as your body moves in a kata that showcases your power, your beauty, your strength.

Your hand wrapped around my sex.

The enticing curve of your mouth as it reaches for mine.

I stand and begin pacing the small space in my quarters, back and forth, back and forth, as if my motions will aid the ship's speed with my added energy.

//Hold on for me, my love. I am coming. I am coming!//

*~*~*

An hour seems an eternity, but finally we are landing, the captain having called ahead to ask for emergency clearance so that we can swoop in ahead of other ships waiting in line. I hesitate at the boarding ramp long enough to clasp his hand gratefully and he smiles sadly and says, "Go."

And I do. Running madly through the docking bay to the inner chambers beyond where I am met by a healer who leads me to your bed.

The medbay is painted in dark blues and whites and there are ten beds in a row. Yours is closest to the bacta tank, and the healer tells me you've been submerged for three days and have just been released as my ship was cutting ahead to land.

Three days.

_Three days._

//Oh, gods, what did the bastards do to you?//

I walk slowly up to your bed, grateful for being spared the sickening vision of you floating in that red haze, and fearful of what I will see that the bacta hasn't yet healed. You are unconscious, and you are pale - oh, so pale, whiter than the white sheet that covers your nakedness, red gel still clinging to your weakened body while an apprentice healer is preparing to wipe you down.

No. That's my duty. I promised to care for you.

Silently, I request the cloth, my hand trembling but my eyes sure, and with a glance at her superior she places the warm, damp cloth in my palm, squeezing my fingers as she does so. When she vacates the seat I take it, my eyes roaming over your body, tears prickling my eyes as I seek out the injuries and scars, bruises and pain. The tube in your arm feeding you, the narrow oxygen hoses in your nose helping you breathe all serve to push me further towards despair, away from hope.

You are so pale. The dark, purplish bruises stand out in a stark, horrifying contrast.

Do you know I am here? //I am here, I am here. Please know I am here...//

Our fledgling bond is quiet. Too quiet. My call and my fears echo in the resounding silence where you should be, held in limbo with no way out and seemingly no way in.

Dimly, I hear the healer behind my shoulder cataloguing the damages, but her monotonous recitation sounds like a listing of goods on a cargo ship to my unwilling ears. The only phrase that cuts sharply in my heart is "touch and go." She doesn't understand that this is YOU. Not just another random patient with hurts to heal like any other, but you, the most precious and perfect being in the galaxy. She doesn't realize your importance to the Jedi Order, to the republic we protect. She doesn't realize your dedication to your life's path.

Your dedication to me.

Dipping the soft cloth in the bowl of water I begin to wipe away the gel, its blood red color belying its healing properties. I raise your arm gently to reach beneath it, counting the fading bruises as I carefully wipe them clean.

Your hand is unresponsive in mine, fingers relaxed and lifeless, so unlike my memory of the strong and capable ones that so tenderly explored and mapped me, that twisted in my hair in the throes of ecstatic orgasm, that knew just how to stroke me to make me come hard and hot.

I need you to touch me once more.

//Wake up. Please.//

The apprentice helps me roll you to your side, oh so carefully, so that I can continue to remove the sticky residue from your back and bottom. Your vulnerability brings me to hot tears, burning down my cheeks, and I press my forehead to your hip, vainly trying to hide my weeping.

Your scent has changed; it's no longer the musky warmth that defines you to my senses. Perhaps it's just an effect of the gel.

Perhaps it's not.

//Oh, gods. Am I losing you?//

You would be angry and ashamed to be seen like this, even by me, to be put in this position of helplessness, and for a brief flash I am intensely selfish, glad that you are deep in senseless nothing, oblivious, for I think the miserable pain in your eyes would be more than I could bear after seeing the glorious body I've held and cherished so battered and broken as an adored doll caught in a windstorm, lost to the child who loved it so.

//Don't wake up. Heal first.//

I'm caught between two conflicting desires; needing to know that you aren't lost forever to me, and hoping that you won't have to know the state of your physical being. My hands relentlessly circle the cloth along your skin, around each vertebra of your spine, the small of your back, the crease of your buttocks, the muscles of your thighs.

You don't even react when I touch the tender backs of your knees, by far your most ticklish spot, and it hits me then, a painful twist deep in my gut, that you are far, far away from me. It no longer matters that I know where your hidden and softer spots are if you can't share in the rediscovering of them with me, the one who loves you more than life itself, the one who waited so long to be able to love you, only to have you nearly ripped from me in this senseless, horrific, violent act.

I wasn't there to watch your back. //Oh, gods! I wasn't there!//

//I. Wasn't. There!//

The horrifying guilt grows from my center, cold fingers creeping into each intimate space of my being, consuming me from the inside out with its cruel hindsight that events would have been different had I been there with you, had we fought side by side, back to back, as we had for so many years.

Damn the Council and their choice to separate us. Damn them all to Sith's hell.

Oh, my love, you're broken, broken because of their choice, by their oh-so-superior wisdom that set us on different paths, knowing our passion yet pressing forward with our sworn dedication to the Order.

They forced duty over love, and the cost of that decision may be too great for even the Council to absorb. Damn the Code. We weren't ready to be apart.

We'll never be ready to be apart.

My attention returns to you, lying still and and white on the narrow cot, lights on the panel over your head blinking in time with every beat of your heart, every breath you draw.

The lights are suddenly blinking faster and a clanging alarm sounds. I find myself stumbling to the far wall, shoved away by healers racing to your side, and you're lost to my sight for all the blue tunics in my way.

No.

No.

No.

//No. . .//

The claxons silence and the blinkings slow to a more sedate pace. Hands suddenly grasp me and I find myself lying down, staring into the harsh overhead lights as the healer I met with earlier leans over me, her hand cool on my sweaty face.

Somewhere in the swirling fog of my mind, I hear her tell me that whatever turmoil and anger I experienced a few minutes ago affected you negatively, and that you shielded yourself by pushing it away. My anguish reached you through the bond, and it hurt you. //I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...//

It hurt my most precious and perfect person.

I must keep control over my emotions.

Be a Jedi. Serene, calm, rational.

I am flat on my back beside you because you fed it all back to me in defense.

Serene. Calm. Rational.

Rational... OH! //I reached you through the bond!// My heart leaps at the hopeful realization. //You heard me!//

The healers tell me I must sleep, for you and for myself. I reach for you, needing to touch, needing to believe that you will remain near. They push my bed alongside yours and I grasp your hand before I nod and allow them to sedate me, sending me to a peaceful, dark oblivion.

_Oh...did you just move your hand...?_

*~*~*

I feel infinitely heavy, sluggish and slow, and my vision is blurred, hazy and dark. A soft touch on my face gives me focus, an anchor to hold while I shake the bleary cobwebs of my mind away.

Arms under my back help me sit up and a glass of water is pressed to my lips. I have been asleep for over a day, but now the healers need me conscious and alert, for your condition has changed.

_When did I let go of your hand?_

They've taken you to surgery, for bleeding has returned inside your broken body, and they need me to feed you through the bond, to nourish you on my love and support, to wheedle you into staying on this side of the Force.

//Don't leave me. We have so much more to do, you and I.//

They tell me you moved just before the bleeding became known. I _did_ feel you move!

//Please stay with me.// My end of the bond is still so painfully, achingly silent.

The surgeon seats me at the top of your bed and I place my hands on your temples, lowering my forehead until it wearily rests on yours, and I send you every image I can think of to entice you to stay with me.

Terenet, where the oceans were so warm that we stripped and swam in the purple rays of sunset, buoyed by the waves and heavy salt.

Alderaan, sweetened wine at a royal wedding that set us both a bit tipsy, much to the amusement of Senator Organa.

The mountains of Clera, the snow so brilliantly white that the sun's reflection glowed in an aura around you.

A knighting ceremony in the Council chambers where one precious bond was severed and another, infinitely more precious, began.

The color of your eyes, how they darkened in passion when we made love under a spreading tree until an insistent dawn called us away on the last morning we touched.

Your gentle smile that speaks of your yearning for me when we are together.

Your body as it arches, pressing against mine, your voice murmuring and gasping as I slide into you.

Your hands wrapped around your lightsaber handle as your body moves in a lover's kata that you dance just for me.

//Stay with me. Dance for me again.//

//Dance with me again.//

*~*~*

It's morning, and the faint rays of the dawning sun are peeking through the windows across from the bed where you sleep ever on. Pink and orange lay across the blanket and creep steadily towards your face, adding color where there is none, falsely painting you healthy and glowing.

Surgery was successful but you needed a few hours in the bacta tank while I nervously paced, your weightless suspension eerie and cold, matching my own inner turmoil, but I must keep it in check lest I harm you again.

The healers sent me outside once, insisting I needed some fresh air. Having forgotten my cloak I stood in a drenching rain and turned my face to the sky. The water soaked into my hair and ran down my cheeks, mingling with my tears.

Standing in a rainstorm, no one can see you cry.

The rain helped to rinse away some of my gloom and left me feeling somewhat refreshed. Once more, I take up the cloth to wash your wasting body, grateful and relieved that you are still here for me to tend to, and the healers believe that you should be waking up soon, but I still don't hear you.

I still don't feel you.

Wearily, my head rests on your arm as I clasp your hand, now clean and dry. I stroke the top gently with my thumb, a circling massage soothing in its repetition, and I focus on breathing, on finding my center, and on sinking into a meditation that I hope will reach you in all its serene beauty as did my agitation before.

_Breathe..._

And you do. A gasp, crashingly loud in the steady quiet of the medbay, the first sound from you I've heard, and it's music, blessed music to my elated ears, and the bond flickers, a tiny candle flame nearly buried in the darkness of a dungeon, but a light nonetheless.

_You are my light._

I reach carefully along the bond, calling to you softly, my mental voice just above a whisper, hopeful that you will come home to me.

A flare, and your sense brightens, and I can feel your hand twitch in mine.

//Oh, my love, my life, my light! Reach for me!//

I swim to the surface from my meditation, anxious to see your face.

Your eyes are still closed but your skin is pinking, and your arms and legs, weakened and thin from illness, make small, painful movements against the bed.

//Come to me!//

I press gentle kisses to your eyes, willing them to open. I stroke your hair and call your name and I am rewarded by a fluttering of eyelashes...

...and in this relieved and elated moment all that I hoped for, longed for, dared to dream of in my dark despair comes true, and in your eyes, those glorious, haunting, loving eyes, I see the reflection I yearned to see just one more time.

Me. Only me.

"Stay," you whisper hoarsely, fingers weakly clutching mine.

"Always, my love. Always."

And you smile.

_~end~_


	4. Knights of Passion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *~*~* indicates a change in narration.

Five days have passed since you awoke and I have not left your side nearly the entire time. The healers felt that separating us would do you more harm than good and kindly allowed me to stay in the bed next to yours, placing curtained barriers around them so that we could have a bit of private space while you continued to recover.

Fate has left you battered and beaten and I feel blessed that I was close by and able to come and be at your side. Now I will care for you as this small ship takes us back to the temple to be monitored by the healers there. Home, but we know our true home is in each others' hearts.

Kneeling on the floor beside the bunk in the tiny sleep cabin, my hand trembles as I reach for your face, tracing the tracks of your joyful tears, shaking my head in wonder at how alike we are, at how we feel so deeply for each other.

I close my eyes and I search for the bond that has sparked to life again. Pure white and gold, I can see it, feel it, reaching from you, joining with me.

It is my undoing, and my head drops to your shoulder as I feel you pulling me close, resting your head against my own, your own body shaking in relieved and grateful sobs as mine does.

What a wonder we are. What a wonder this moment is. This is not a dream.

*~*~*

As you kneel beside me you reach to caress my face, and when you close your eyes I can sense you touching the growing bond between us. The tears we've been fighting since you arrived by my side are catching up with us and you rest your head on my shoulder as they fall.

Eventually, our tears are spent and you move your head to settle against my chest as my fingers stroke through your hair. I've missed touching you like this, these intimate caresses that only I am allowed. I can feel my heartbeat against your cheek, reassuring you of my presence, of my life. I know you feared I would be lost in this past week; I can see it in the dark circles under your eyes and the exhausted slump of your shoulders, but I am stubborn, and I am here and you are here with me. I'm bruised and you're heartsore, but we're here.

//Please touch me.//

*~*~*

Responding to your wish, I slowly slide my hand within your sleep tunic, needing the warmth of your skin under my hand. I hear loving approval in your soft sigh, your need for touch matching mine. This space - this moment - is holding still for us, to savor and remember. Live in the moment. The moment is waiting for us to take it.

//Oh, how I love you.//

Our eyes meet and I know you heard my thought. My heart is too full, and tears threaten to spill again as my eyes close with the power of the emotion. Hands grasp my face and gentle lips kiss the tears away. Softly, they move to my own lips and the sweet taste of them makes my heart suddenly race and I gasp with the force of it.

My head swims and you persist, your insistence becoming slightly more demanding, and my lips part to accept your tongue in its silky softness, tracing inside, seeking out my own. As they meet, the jolt it causes goes straight to my center and I realize that my desire for you has grown beyond anything I've dreamed of.

//I want you. I need you.//

I can feel your hands loosening my tunics, dropping my belt to the floor, and I am helpless to stop you or assist you. I can't think, and I realize I need to stop thinking and just...feel.

*~*~*

//You are the moment I live in...//

Your hands slide my sleep tunic off my body and suddenly we're pressed together, your heated skin against my own pale flesh, and I am sweetly touched by your care to avoid the healing wound in my side as we lay on this pitifully narrow bunk in this tiny sleep cabin. It may as well be the grandest bridal suite on Alderaan for all we notice, so focused on each other as we are, hurtling in this tiny tin can through the blackness of space.

//You are my light in the darkness...//

I feel myself sinking into your kiss, abandoning myself to you as I revel in the nearness of you. Every murmur, every breath is for me and I want to surround us with the heady sensation, to draw the blanket of its warmth around our bodies, keeping us close in our love.

Our senses fill, our limbs twine together and we move as one. Dusty pink nipples licked lightly with questing tips of tongue, then bit gently, our quiet moans filling our ears. I hear you whisper my name and I respond with a kiss, my fingertips tracing your face before we return to the sensual task of pleasuring and rediscovering.

//I have been so lost without you...//

I wrap my arms about you and gently turn you to lay flat on the bunk while I hover above. My hungry eyes savor every bit of you, re-memorizing the exact shade of your eyes, of your hair, the breadth of your shoulders and the narrowness of your waist. My hands glide along your chest and down to your hips before I bend to steal a taste of your navel.

I need to find those hidden, softer spots that are waiting for me, and the last of our clothing melts away in the seductive need to touch every inch of you with every inch of me. You shiver as I ghost my breath along the sweat of your neck. Goose bumps rise and your nipples peak, inviting a nibble and kiss.

//You are my warmth in the cold...//

The hollow of your collarbone heaves under my lips as you pant heavily. The delicate inside of your elbow warms to my caress. The damp crease where your body meets your legs is so soft and smells of musk, and you arch slightly when my tongue leaves a hot, slick trail along the curve of your stomach and the slope of your hip, down into the cleft of your buttocks and around the velvety sac of your balls. The hardness of your erection, swaying as you writhe, caresses my cheek and I run the tip of my tongue along the sensitive underside, delighting in the startled gasp it elicits.

I rediscover all your hidden spots with my hands, my tongue, my teeth, marking them as mine while I feel you move beneath me. The slow undulation is driving me gloriously mad, the soft firmness of your fingers roaming the secrets of my body as I seek out the long-missed ones of yours.

You grab my arms suddenly, pressing your lips to mine as you lay me down in your place. You slip to the floor and kneel at my side, seeing to the injury there. A new secret, marked by a sharp scar, jagged but healing, and it hurts my heart to see the tears in your beautiful eyes. As I lay back to submit to your touch, you gently run your fingertips across it, and my breath hitches as I realize that you are acknowledging its presence, its permanence, and your soft lips trace the ragged lines of it, making it yours. The brute who placed it there can no longer claim ownership; it is yours. I am yours. Every thought, every fear, every breath I take and every dream I dream are yours, and yours are mine. You belong to me as blue belongs to the sky, as waves belong to the ocean, as soil belongs to the earth. You are mine.

//You complete my soul...//

*~*~*

Presently, I rise to sit on the edge of the bed, gripping your hand and trying to pace my ragged breathing. The damage that has been done to your beautiful, perfect body kills a part of me inside, but in your eyes rests a comforting calm and a longing which needs no words, only a giving and taking of your body with mine. That the desire within you is for me threatens to overwhelm my senses, but I take a deep breath and focus on you. Pulling you gently up to a sitting position and dropping kisses to your palms, once more I lay in your place and I offer myself to you.

//Please touch me...//

Your eyes darken and you stretch cautiously out on top of me, mindful of your injury, moving my hands above my head, holding them there while your mouth meets mine and our tongues dance together, twining, stroking, skimming on the edge of demanding. I arch my back, pressing my erection into yours. The soft sliding against the hardness of you becomes a sensation so intense that while my body strives for completion, my mind never wants it to end.

Though my eyes are closed, I feel the shifting of your body as you sit up, and I keen with the loss of our intimate contact. Still holding my hands above my head with one hand, you trace the other down my chest, down across the breastbone, barely brushing with feathery fingertips until you reach the head of my sex; I jump slightly at the touch. Your hand moves back up and finds one nipple, rubbing it gently with your thumb, while you fondle the other with your tongue.

Faintly, I hear myself whimper, and I feel your warm breath across my face as you trace my lips with the tip of that same hot tongue.

My senses are spinning, a pattern of red and gold and white, and I can't tell where I end and where you begin. The sweat of anticipation beads on my face, trickling down to my neck, and vaguely I wonder if you are strong enough for lovemaking.

Releasing my hands, you slide both of yours down my flanks, searing a path down to my hips, holding me down while all my being dissolves into the softness of your mouth on my sex, liquid fire enveloping me. I buck beneath you, but you hold me firmly down and slowly slide up and down on me, teasing me with your tongue, suckling the very essence out of me. My fingers twine in your hair, rising and falling with the motion of your head, and I am nearly lost to the passion.

Suddenly the heat is cold and your mouth clamps down on mine fiercely; I surge my head upwards to meet you, tasting a bit of myself on your lips. You break away and in my ear I hear you whisper, "come for me." The hot, moist heat returns to my sex and I arch high off the bed, your hands allowing my hips to move as I stroke within your mouth, once, twice - the white-hot release sends me beyond myself and I'm falling and floating and screaming all at once, and it's your face behind my closed eyes, and your name shouted from my lips, and this time, you are with me, as I need you with me, as I've needed you with me for so long.

I will always need you...

*~*~*

My lips on yours rouse you from the shuddering collapse of your orgasm, and as I lay beside you I curl into your chest, your heartbeat thrumming in my ears. My panting is quick but I try to compose myself so that I can return my focus to you. I need to be inside you, where I can be safe and complete and whole.

//Will you keep me there forever, until we die?//

Turning me onto my back, you drop another kiss to the pinking scar before you straddle my hips, your hand slowly stroking my sex, marveling at the silky skin gliding on such hardness. I am so hard for you...

You shift back and bend to rub your cheek along the length of my shaft, and I gasp and tangle my fingers in your hair. You close your mouth over the head and I suck in a noisy breath, murmuring your name on the exhale. I feel your mouth curve into a smile around my cock and you sit up. The loss of the wonderful heat surrounding me frustrates me and I hear you chuckle at my soft wail.

*~*~*

Perfectly still save for my chest rising and falling, I drink in the sight of you beneath me. You are more beautiful than I recalled in my wistful dreams, and I reach to cup your cheek and smooth away the beads of sweat on your brow. "I love you," I whisper, and your eyes shine as you respond to me in a voice that melts right into my groin, "I love you, too. Always. Forever."

"Always. Forever," I whisper back, and take you in my hand again, stroking slowly, my eyes never leaving yours.

Reaching for the oil from my belt, I let you go just long enough to warm a small puddle in my palms before stroking you again, using both hands one after the other, covering you in the slick warmth.

The heat of your gaze watching my manipulations sends a spike of arousal through me and I gasp, my cock straining against my belly.

Oh, what those eyes can do to me.

I can feel your legs starting to move restlessly behind me, one knee bending, then the other, as you begin to writhe beneath my weight. I pull myself to my knees, one on either side of you, and I position your sex carefully at the entrance to my body, my own breath catching at the pressure of the touch.

Slowly and smoothly, I lower myself onto you, allowing the stretch and sensation of being filled. My head is thrown back...your hands are on my hips gripping and guiding...my hands on your chest...fingers curling against your muscles...and I hear you moan as I take you inside.

I drop my head and my eyes capture yours again. Gently, I rock against you once, twice. Your eyes stay locked on mine. You are loving me with your eyes as I love you with my body.

//I need to see my reflection in your eyes...//

*~*~*

My hips reach up to meet you as you rock back, and I can see your face softening as I fill you. Your heat squeezes and surrounds me, and I can hear my breath becoming gasps, yet I won't break away from your gaze.

Pressed against your fingers, I feel the sweat trickling off my chest - you bend to briefly brush my nipple with your tongue, and I arch suddenly. //Oh, gods...//

Smiling, you reach for my shaft and begin to pump it in time with my thrusts.

Eyes locked, we thrust and rock, stroke and stroke. All too soon I feel you tense and quaver in my hand, and I can no longer hold back, coming in a glorious burst of white-hot ecstasy as you rock back on me, drawing the pleasure out, while you splash my neck and chest with your own release, your cries mingling with mine until you collapse on top of me, both of us twitching and shuddering with the intense aftershocks.

*~*~*

As if through a haze, I gradually become aware of your hands on my back, rubbing lightly, while I listen as your heartbeat winds down and your breathing becomes more measured. I slip off and curl against you, feeling your lips against my forehead, and I rub my hand up and down your arm, reassuring myself that you are here. I hear you murmuring endearments and promises while I lay against you, exhausted and sated.

You turn and our eyes meet once more, and in them I see the reflection that I cherish with every breath I take.

Me. Only me.

"I love you," I whisper, and you tighten your arms around me, pressing our foreheads together. "Stay with me."

"Always," you softly reply, the sincerity in your eyes shining brightly in your tears.

Drawing my cloak over us, we look out the overhead windows, out into the galaxy that has both driven us apart and brought us together, and feel that the stars are casting the light of their approval down on us, bathing us in their glow, promising time.

We sleep deeply, tightly wrapped in each other's arms as our ship brings us closer to the Jedi Temple. We are to arrive at the break of dawn, where I am to deliver you to the healers. After that, we'll take the stars' promise of time together before we are asked to go our separate ways again.

I don't know if either of us could emotionally survive another separation, but I won't dwell on that now. Right now, we're together, and right now, we will live in this most precious and perfect moment for as long as we can.

Force willing, it will be forever.

//I love you...//

_~end_


End file.
